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In the second creation story (Genesis 2:4-14), the narrator talks about rivers. “A river flows out of Eden to water the garden” (v. 10). In Hebrew, the word “flow” has no tense and names this ancient action as one that continues into the present. The single river divides into four – the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris and the Euphrates. We know about the Tigris and the Euphrates, but not the other two. There’s not enough in the text to help us locate exactly where the Garden of Eden once grew. Perhaps this is the point. These unknown rivers remind us we can never find our way back to the perfect goodness of Eden. We can’t return, but we can look forward. We can allow the vision of Eden’s mutuality and interdependence to shape how we live.
Rather than point us to an actual place, this story points us to God. The river at the beginning is, in many ways, the headwaters of all life. Everything starts with that first river that flows out of Eden. God is the source of all that grows, all that breathes, all that lives, all that is.
This message is excerpted from the Bible study “Scripture and nature: Teachers of faith” by Sara Olson-Smith in the March/April 2024 Gather magazine.